The New Yorker has a piece this week by Michael Kinsley on living a long life. He tells movingly about his struggle with Parkinson's Disease and the desire by many for a longer life. He writes,

. . . . What’s more, of all the gifts that life and luck can bestow—money,
good looks, love, power—longevity is the one that people seem least
reluctant to brag about. In fact, they routinely claim it as some sort
of virtue—as if living to ninety were primarily the result of hard work
or prayer, rather than good genes and never getting run over by a
truck. Maybe the possibility that the truck is on your agenda for later
this morning makes the bragging acceptable. The longevity game is one
that really isn’t over till it’s over.

Between what your parents gave you to start with—genetically or
culturally or financially—and pure luck, you play a small role in
determining how long you live. And even if you add a few years through
your own initiative, by doing all the right things in terms of diet,
exercise, sleep, vitamins, and so on, why is that to your moral credit?
Extending your own life expectancy is the most selfish motive
imaginable for doing anything. Do it, by all means. I do. But for
heaven’s sake don’t take a bow and expect applause.

This is the game that really counts. Perhaps you imagine that, as
eternity approaches, the petty ambitions and rivalries of this life
melt away. Perhaps they do. That doesn’t mean that the competition is
over. It means that the biggest competition of all is about to start.
Do you doubt it? Ask yourself: what do you have now, and what do you
covet, that you would not gladly trade for, say, five extra years?
These would be good years, of cross-country skiing between fashionable
Colorado resorts, or at least years when you could still walk and think
and read and drive. You would still be a player in whatever game you
spent your life playing: still invited to faraway conferences about
other people’s problems, if you ever were; still baking your famous
chocolate-chip banana bread for the family if your life followed a less
McNamarish course. What would you trade for that? Or, rather, what
wouldn’t you trade? O.K., you’d give up years for the health and
happiness of your children. What else? Peace in the Middle East? A
solution to global warming? A cure for AIDS?
These negotiations are secret, mind you. No one will know if you
selfishly choose a few extra years for yourself over an extra million
or two for Planet Earth. We’ll posit that you’re a good person, though,
and that to spare the earth from a couple of the Four Horsemen you’d
accept a shorter span for yourself. . . .

Anyway, back to you. Children, country, future of the world are off
the table. And, yes, these are the important things. But there are
other things that make life sweet. The baby-boom generation in America
is thought to have found something approaching genuine happiness in
material possessions. A popular bumper sticker back in the
nineteen-eighties read, “He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” This was
thought to be a brilliant encapsulation of the baby-boom generation’s
shallowness, greed, excessive competitiveness, and love of possessions.
And it may well be all of these things. It’s also fundamentally wrong.
Is there anything in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue—or even listed
on Realtor.com—for which you would give up five years? Of course not.
That sports car may be to die for, but in fact you wouldn’t. What good
are the toys if you’re dead? “He Who Dies Last”—he’s the one who wins. . . .